Category: Blogs

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I am all not for Snap previews

If there is anything more annoying to me when it comes to website browsing, it’s Snap previews. It’s completely a matter of preference, but I cannot help but express my disregard for something that is supposed to be helpful.

When I’m looking at a site, I don’t want to see a tiny preview in a pop-up bubble of the link that I think I might like to click on, from said site that I am already looking at, especially when it has a bunch of links on it. Maybe it comes from the fact that I get a lot of content from RSS feeds, not bothering with loading websites unless I find it necessary. However, if I want to view a web page, I want to see the whole thing. I don’t want to peek through the keyhole. I’d rather just kick the door down and go in to see what I can find.

Thankfully, BoingBoing has pointed to a great post about what you can do to stop this helpful service from functioning on your browser. Rock!

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Get more of Coach’s Corner

I’m going to completely admit it. Before I moved to Vancouver, I had no knowledge of CBC’s Hockey Night in Canada other than its existence. I also had no clue, as a loving hockey fan, how good their coverage is. Of course, I lived my whole life in the U.S. This is Canada. There’s your difference.

To my dear friends who also love hockey and don’t get the coverage that you should, especially in the states, take this information that comes off of Inside the CBC. If you’re not checking out the Don Cherry[wiki], then you’re not getting all the hockey you could be.

CBC.ca will launch a special online version of Coach’s Corner tomorrow with new content, design and features. Enhancements include an improved and larger video picture and an online forum allowing hockey fans to submit their remarks regarding Don’s, uh, “legendary” weekly commentary.

Episodes from the 2006/07 season are available online, and in the coming weeks, a full-screen viewing option and a revamped archive consisting of some of the most memorable Coach’s Corner moments from the past will also be available exclusively on CBC.ca/coach. [insidethecbc]

I was chatting with my buddy, Sushi, back in Iowa about the coverage he gets back there. Even with digital cable, mostly likely the basic package, he hardly gets any hockey on TV. Comcast SportsNet shows Blackhawks games from time to time, and combined with the weekly games on NBC, that’s about it. His cable package doesn’t include OLN (who the NHL has the explicit contract with for broadcasts in the states), and there isn’t an extra package he can buy for the NHL Network, NHL Center Ice, Versus, or an “Ice Pack”.

How’s that for someone living within a four hour drive to Chicago, five hours to Minneapolis, and five hours to St. Louis?

If anyone is complaining about the lack of success that the NHL is experiencing in the U.S., then there’s your reason. Hockey fans can’t get what they want, and there is very little for new fans to get exposed to. If it wasn’t for the NHL on ESPN[wiki] while I was in high school, I don’t think I would have ever come to love the sport. And yes, that was before Fox ever did the glowing puck thing[wiki].

Additional Note

I was just checking out the Coach’s Corner site and had a thought, so let’s see if anyone at the CBC is paying attention to me(which I highly doubt).

Why not publish all this video content to YouTube? Or do Google Video or whatever. The point is, make it so that anyone can embed the video on their website or blog. On top of that, and to sweeten the deal for you guys, tack on a five second ad for CBC programming at the very beginning. Nothing too flashy, but a quick voice over and a slide for a CBC program.

This way, we can share Coach’s Corner with the world, and you CBC folks get to promote your stuff. TV, radio, podcasts, or whatever. Have at it, but just make it simple and to the point. Go beyond five or ten seconds, and I am fast forwarding to the good stuff.

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Blog: Pacific Metropolis

Pacific Metropolis I’ve recently discovered Pacific Metropolis, and while it might old news to some, this site has quickly become a daily favorite of mine. I can’t recall how I stumbled upon it, but the RSS feed has clued me into numerous construction projects going on in the city. Trust me, there are a few of them. Every time I walk by one, I’m always curious as to the background of what’s going on.

I’m particularly interested in the Southeast False Creek development that they have regular reports on. This will be the Olympic Village for the 2010 winter games, but I’m more concerned about what will result from the overhauling of that area. The post about the preliminary design plans and the zoning for areas outside of the village speak well on this.

There isn’t much listed on their about page, but the header reads, “Tracking the Development of Vancouver’s Urban Environment”. That’s pretty spot on. It might not have all the information in the world, but I do appreciate what I’ve seen over the past month. If you wonder about all the cranes and scaffolding around Vancouver, then you might check the site out once and a while.

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Why do you blog?

This is something I’ve been considering posting about for a long time, but just after filling out this survey, I’ll hold off on posting about it for a little while. However, if you’re a blogger, Darren Barefoot has setup this site to gather some information about folks like us.

Why do you blog? Why do I blog? Why does anybody? As the medium enters its pubescence, it’s a question that I wonder about all the time. I’ve talked about it with a lot of different bloggers, and everyone offers a different reason.

In February, I’m giving a talk called “Why We Blog” at Northern Voice here in Vancouver. In preparation, I’m launching this ad hoc survey to gather more opinions and voices from the blogosphere.

The survey is 16 questions, and hopefully won’t take you more than 10 minutes. I really appreciate the time you might take to complete it. As a token of that appreciation, I’m giving away a few prizes [whydoyoublog]

I know that I think about this topic a lot on a personal level. I can’t be the only one that drifts off to sleep at night while thinking, “why do I do this?” Still, whenever some one asks me this question, I have a hard time giving a solid answer. Once you start, it’s just hard to stop. And I’m just talking about blogging. Podcasting is a whole other topic, but not too far off the mark.

Rebecca and I are trying to get things in order to attend Northern Voice. Hopefully it will fit in the budget. There are some interesting sessions about podcasting that I wouldn’t mind dropping in on, and Travis is hosting a session on citizen journalism that would be cool to check out. We’ll just have to see if it’s in the cards.

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WordPress releases and betas

I’m knee deep in the world of WordPress right now. I actually oversee five setups, and when there is a new release of an upgrade, that’s five sites I have to work through. Backup here, backup there, overwrite the old, and in with the new. It’s a few hour process when all is said and done.

The big thing right now is that 2.0.7 was released just a few days ago. In fact, 2.0.6 was released not even two weeks ago, and I’d avoid that version if I were you. There was some security concerns in the PHP, meaning that could allow some hacking to happen to your blog. Not good.

The hugely geeky reason that I know this is that I have recently joined up with the development mailing list. Just a couple of days after the 2.0.6 release, there was an announcement on the list about the issue and a test version sent out to all subscribers for testing. This is why I always hesitate to be on that “bleeding edge” of things. It’s good to let people much smarter than you test things out if you don’t have the resources to do it yourself.

The WordPress Podcast is what really got me into the idea of joining the testers mailing list. WordPress 2.1 is in beta, and I get a kick out of seeing the exchange of knowledge about what’s new, what doesn’t work, and so on. You can get more info about it at WordPress Planet.

I did a local install of it and made a preliminary look through of the next generation of WordPress. There’s some interesting things, but it’s still too early for me to report on it. Regardless, I’m looking forward to the full release, as many folks have for over the past year.

The WP Podcast did just mention that there is talk about a 120-day turnaround between versions 2.1 and 2.2, a vast departure of the development, or lack there of, that we’ve seen from the WordPress folks. This won’t stop me from doing development from here on out in 2.1. Who knows when it will go into full release.

Wrote this post while waiting for the last of the sites to finish updating and listening to the They Might Be Giants podcast. Holy crap. Now back to your regularly scheduled geekiness.

Update: This post about 10 things you should know about WordPress 2.1 is a really great read about the new version that should be coming out soon. In fact, this article sites as January 22, 2007 being the day that this version is to be fully released.

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The roof is exploding!

I have to state the obvious. Today’s collapsing of the roof at BC Place[wiki] was the hot topic across so many media outlets, and everyone in the world of blogging, at least here in Vancouver, was looking to be apart of the madness. Yes, Rebecca did make a post about it. I won’t deny that, but we were about 30 minutes late to the whole event as we were driving around the mayhem of slush covered roads in the GVRD. She just amended a post that she made earlier in the day to include a photo she snapped while on our return home.

The significance is nothing to sneeze at. I get that much. This is a huge landmark for Vancouver, and the issue runs deep. The winter olympics are coming, local officials might have over thought the longevity of the dome, and so on. I get it.

The inflated roof at B.C. Place stadium in Vancouver has collapsed, but no one is reported hurt.

The office of Vancouver Fire Chief Bob Smith says there are no injuries following the collapse of the roof of BC Place Stadium.

Emergency personnel are calling this a mechanical problem that caused the stadium’s fans to cut out and bring the roof down.

The fabric dome came down into the bowl of the stadium during a storm that brought wind and heavy, wet snow to the area. [cknw]

But holy crap, was there ever a rush to publish everyone’s vantage point of it all. While in the car, CKNW was doing their damnedest to cover the story to every last end of the catastrophe. Apparently someone made some sort of statement at some point just after the collapse that led one of their on air guys to to wonder about some cover up over some one somewhere being killed during the whole thing. Their coverage was a tad on the extreme, bizarre, and near insane side, but we were able to dissect the jest of the story from the outside in.

And honestly, what was the guy on that they were interviewing about the noise of the roof collapsing sounding like “zoo animals running through your kitchen”? I’ve never had the opportunity to have any sort of wild animal run through any of the households that I have lived in. I experienced some parties in college that might come close, but the sounds of zebras and elephants is something I’m not all too familiar with. He was on the field at the time of initial tear. Outside, people said it sounded like thunder. Inside, this dude was tripped out by the sounds of the circus parade punching a hole in the roof.

The various blogs from the area didn’t fail to amaze me though. I figured someone would, at the very least, have pictures on Flickr or YouTube when we got home late this afternoon, but this was nuts. The Vancouverite[1, 2, 3], Darren Barefoot, Breebop, Derrek Miller, Jeremy Latham, Metroblogging Vancouver, Beyond Robson[1, 2], and my good pals Dave Olsen and Alanah even weighed in. You all lived up to your expectations, and it was a rush to have your stuff up there as soon as you could. That’s what amazes me the most.

Everyone has their view, but there has to be a point where a roof collapsing on a sports stadium can only be done to a certain extent before it’s saturated. This has happened back in my home state a few times to the UNI-Dome[wiki], but they fixed the issue by slapping on a metal roof. Not saying that this can be easily solved in a similar way for BC Place, but don’t worry folks. Life will go on.

If it only took a phone call to fly in replacement trees for Stanley Park and a few weeks to make that look normal again, then we’d totally be in business.

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Going back to high school

I had the strangest dream last night. I swear that I have way too many things floating around in my head lately, and it left me thinking that maybe it wasn’t the most crazy idea to drift into my subconscious after all. I know I’ll be thinking otherwise once I’m done here.

For some unknown reason, I went back to high school. More so, I wanted to blog about the experience and report on the social structures that exist among that age group. Further more, I would try to be objective as possible to their reaction of having a person my age going to school right along side with them, almost like a psychology study or something. The dream didn’t last long enough to say if I’d be any better at various class subjects though.

I was also very into the idea of being apart of the school newspaper. However, I wanted to change the way the paper was done and make everything much more web based. Blogs, digital cameras, and so on. RSS feeds so the rest of the world could share in what the big news was at this high school that I was at.

Then I woke up. The first thought that popped into my mind was that there is no way I could do that. I’d be seen as some sick guy who just wanted to hang around underage kids. The use of blogging platforms for school newspapers was still a good idea though.

Some times I have weird dreams. Other times, I can’t stop being geeky even in my own sleep.

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Five things you (probably) don’t know

It’s been a few weeks since I’ve gotten around to doing this, but Jeremy tagged me some time ago to do this “five things you didn’t know about me” thing that’s been going around. I’ve actually thought about this numerous times and come up with nothing good to plop down. I’m going to give myself about fifteen minutes to come up with the best things I can off the top of my head. Here goes nothing.

  • I was a band and choir geek in high school. I was in all the top choir groups, but not show choir. *shudder* I started out as a tenor, dropped down to the lower octaves of second bass, and rose up to a baritone/tenor when I figured out that rock stars don’t sing with a bass voice. Of course, this is all classical vocal training, but that goes a really long way, no matter what kind of singing you do in the rest of your life. In band, I didn’t apply my talents as much, but I played baritone, euphonium, fuglehorn, and valve trombone. I’m sure you don’t find this too surprising.
  • I have a series of dream jobs that I would like to have careers in if time and money were no object, not to mention talent for said position. List off the top of my head, but not limited to: astronomer, architect, carpenter, radio talk show host, painter, graphic designer, musician, UNIX programmer, writer, cinematographer, film director, actor, professional hockey player, professional baseball player, play-by-play sports announcer(hockey, baseball, or college football), interior decorator, plumber, forest ranger, guitar technician, roadie for a rock band, and broadcast engineer. I’ve already done the last one, but that is too much fun to not do again.
  • I lived in Japan for three months in 2000. Camp Adventure is a program that sends college students to U.S. military facilities to run day camps for children. I was at NAF Atsugi[wiki], located in between Yokohama and Tokyo. Camp counselor to fifteen kids by day, played throughout the backyard of Japan at night and on the weekends. Probably the best summer vacation I ever had.
  • I play bass guitar, and drop-D tuning is my weak spot. My dreams of success were set back when I slammed my left index finger in a car door about five years ago. It’s still tender when I run the frets and probably will be for the rest of my life because how poorly the bone healed at the tip of my finger. My bass is still in the states, so that means that I’m going to suck more than I did before when I get my hands on it again. I’ve only been in two “bands” in my life but never lived an even bigger plot to be a lead singer.
  • I have Gilbert’s Syndrome[wiki]. This might be a result or continuation of being jaundice at birth(of which I almost didn’t survive). This a major reason as to why I exercise through running and strength conditioning. It seems to keep the bilirubin levels in my body regulated. Otherwise, I start to really feel like crap.

Now I have to tag five more people? I’m not too sure who has and hasn’t been tagged yet, so please don’t rag on me if you’ve already been marked. I call on The Reverend Don Deeley, Yvonne, GZ Expat, Alanah, and J.J. Even though those last two are hockey bloggers, I’m curious about those things we don’t know about some of the biggest Canucks fans out there.

This didn’t hurt nearly as bad as I thought it would. However, nothing there is ever final or complete in story. For the sake of time, I tried to keep it brief as possible. I can get long winded about things if I’m not careful.

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VCOE going away; the hockey blogging will continue

There has been a bit of news today regarding one of our collaborators to The Crazy Canucks podcast. Alanah, of Vancouver Canucks Op Ed, posted a fairly major announcement this afternoon, ending a three year run of her blog.

No, you didn’t read that wrong — Vancouver Canucks Op Ed will be closing down very soon, probably in the next week or two. I’ve been putting off posting this, but it’s time to explain what’s already happened and what’s coming up.

I’m afraid it’s a bit long-winded, but I’m sort of sentimental about this blog, so cut me some slack…;-) [vancouvercanucksoped]

Read the rest of her post to get the reasoning for the end of VCOE, but the good news is that her hockey blogging adventures will continue. Expect bigger and better things from Alanah in the very near future. Also, be sure to catch the next episode of The Crazy Canucks as we will be sure to expand on this topic further.